Continuing the momentum of COP 21, “100 Projects for Climate” aims to speed up the emergence of citizen-led initiatives to combat global warming. This new participative step, building on the valuable discussions of the Paris-Climate Conference, will enable the 100 most innovative solutions from around the world to become a reality.

In June 2017, the creators of this platform for the French Ministry of Environment asked me to join them. “Open Team recognizes her as a ‘pollinator,’ who is able to share resources and build collaborative networks among players who do their part to mitigate the effects of climate change.”

I’m now in Paris working with OpenTeam, while we prepare for participation in COP23 this November in Bonn.

Click here to donate to travel expenses.

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And, you can still join us in giving hope to a rainforest that’s 93% gone. That statistic isn’t working for anyone, so we’re growing this global citizen initiative to restore native tree cover by encouraging organic regenerative agroforestry methods in the countryside, and organic afforestation methods in urban areas.

My name is Alana Lea, creator of the iGiveTrees crowdfunding campaigns and the ECOfloresta project. Through trial and error, over the last eight years, we‘ve discovered a way to restore real hope. With your funding partership, I’ve been able to give trees to small Brazilian communities through local NGOs. In turn, they are replanting an endangered rainforest, to restore biodiversity, produce more oxygen, rebalance water systems, and sink more carbon for the benefit of the whole planet.

These days, I’m confident that we’ve made a positive impact by directly supporting small local, organic, rural organizations,instead of the Big International NGOs (BINGOs) that accept funding from agrochemical companies, then teach people to use toxic chemicals to keep their donors happy. These BINGOs also fund environmental education, while requiring the use of herbicides when their projects replant the forest. Nature’s balance is once again being destroyed, by those methods.

Since 2009 the iGiveTrees campaign has crowdfunded 6,000 trees that were given to the people of the Atlantic Rainforest just by sharing our story on a few blogs and videos. That was R&D – research and development – to discover what works. And even more important, what doesn’t work. Informed by experience, we’re now motivated to do hundreds of times more with new field partners who have proven commitment to the process, while needing help to achieve their planting goals.

The trees we’ve given back to the Atlantic Forest since 2010 have been planted in the Vale do Paraiba, São Paulo state. Have a look at this historic photo to see the area, as it appeared in the 1882. We see slaves working in a coffee plantation. Descendants of some of these people are now subsistence farm families, receiving trees to heal the spirit of both people and the land, while renewing their water sources.

Here’s how the project began…

When I learned that 93% of the Brazilian rainforest where I was born had disappeared in my lifetime, I was shocked into action. So I found people who knew more about the land than I did, and together we started a reforestation project.

Over several years, I teamed up with a network of sustainable seed harvesters, small NGOs and subsistence farm families who now live on barren land that was once a lush rainforest. They want to replant their land, without adding toxic chemicals to their groundwater, as they’re being taught to do by certain entities.

In some of the areas we’ve helped plant in the past years, residents are challenged by the eucalyptus plantations (for paper pulp) that work with agrochemical companies, and their green gloved NGO partners who approve of planting genetically engineered trees, sprayed with toxic herbicides.

Once abundant water sources were sucked dry by thirsty, fast-growing, eucalyptus trees, contributing to epic droughts, while pollinators die, and remaining water supplies are contaminated by glyphosate, now recognized as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

In contrast, when we give rural families a gift of organically grown, native species trees, they renew the life of the rainforest to benefit us all.

Together, we are renewing the planet’s precious natural resources for our kids.

Our reforestation project supports global cooling, the return of wildlife and Nature’s biodiversity. And our hundreds of species of tropical trees have a better chance of growing to maturity, faster, able to sink more carbon than trees planted in the backyards of the Northern Hemisphere OR Genetically Modified trees.

Your tax-deductible “crowdfunding” donations make the purchase and distribution of these trees possible, at no cost to the recipients, through social enterprise and non-profit partnerships. We work directly with small, local NGO partners in the community who are focused on teaching organic agroforestry in targeted areas of need.

In 2017 our goal is to gift a small food forest of 300 trees, within the city of São Paulo. In collaboration with Afforestt and a Brazilian non-profit, we’ll conduct a training in the Miyawaki Method with Shubhendu Sharma, so that a new generation of environmental entrepreneurs can replicate what they’ve learned.

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Tax-deductible DONATIONS keep us going – click on an image below to help us grow!

AFFORESTATION TRAINING

Help sponsor the first Brazilian training of a new generation of environmental entrepreneurs in the Miyawaki method of Afforestation, as recommended by Project Drawdown. We’re bringing Shubhendu Sharma from India to teach the method of his mentor, Dr. Akira Miyawaki. This is a replicatable, organic system of intensive soil preparation, planting of successional native species trees in urban areas, that has been tested globally for more than 40 years. And, we’ll offer scholarships to women who want to learn this as a trade.

NATIVE SPECIES TREES – $25

Help sponsor the gift of trees for an urban food forest. We’ll be planting 300 native species trees in each plot, with an emphasis on tropical staple tree crops. These will include Coconut, Jackfruit, Moringa, Avocado, Mango, Papaya, Pitanga, Aurocaria, Fruita de Conde, Jaibuticaba, Banana, Passionflower, Pineapple and many others! This includes the cost of organic soil amendments, digging equipment, mulch and 2 years of maintenance after plantings. Since there's such a diversity of trees being planted, individual costs vary, so this is a fund toward the whole forest plot, not the cost for one tree.

NATIVE TREE SEEDS – $50

Help sponsor the gift of native species tree seeds from this endangered rainforest. We support back country sustainable seed harvesters who supply their local seed banks and nurseries. These are large bags of seeds, not small packets. The size of the bag depends upon the type of seed, but each one holds approximately 1,000 seeds. This is the way we protect biodiversity.